Investigation of modified speciation for enhanced control of mercury

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Mercury was identified as a hazardous air pollutant in Title 3 of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. It has been singled out for particular scrutiny because of its behavior in the environment (bioaccumulation) and its potential for deleterious effects on humans and wildlife. After studying the sources of mercury in the environment, the US Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that coal-fired boilers generate a significant fraction of the total anthropogenic emissions. Therefore, the agency is currently considering whether to impose mercury control requirements on coal-fired boilers in the electric utility industry. However, the costs for potential control measures (such ...
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Description

Mercury was identified as a hazardous air pollutant in Title 3 of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. It has been singled out for particular scrutiny because of its behavior in the environment (bioaccumulation) and its potential for deleterious effects on humans and wildlife. After studying the sources of mercury in the environment, the US Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that coal-fired boilers generate a significant fraction of the total anthropogenic emissions. Therefore, the agency is currently considering whether to impose mercury control requirements on coal-fired boilers in the electric utility industry. However, the costs for potential control measures (such as sorbent injection) can be extremely high. Mercury removal with chloric acid solutions was tested. The presence of NO increased Hg removal. It appeared that both gas-gas and gas-liquids reactions were operating, with the gas-phase reactions involving NO becoming increasingly important as the solute concentration was raised. From these studies, it was concluded that even higher Hg{sup 0} removals could be obtained if more of the reagent was made available for reaction in the gas phase. For this reason (and also to simulate a more real-world duct-injection process) a new series of tests was initiated in which an ultrasonic atomizer was used to inject small droplets of the oxidizing solutions into a flowing gas stream containing Hg{sup 0} vapors and other typical flue-gas components. The results of those tests are described in this paper.

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